ARM licenses CPU/GPU combo to Shanghai firm

LONDON – Shanghai InfoTM Micro-electronics has licensed a series of intellectual property cores from ARM Holdings plc, including the ARM11 processor core, Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A9 processor cores as well as the Mali300 and Mali400 graphics processor cores.

Shanghai InfoTM is a subsidiary of Shuoying Digital Science & Technology (China) Co. Ltd. which is its main customer. ARM said the licenses would used to provide 3-D graphics in range of mobile computing devices.

Shanghai InfoTM is expected to have multicore ICs ready later this year to target a range of mobile computing devices from tablet computers up to netbooks.

The Cortex-A9 is likely to be targeted at higher performance applications while the Cortex-A5 MPCore processor is the most energy efficient, lowest cost processor suitable for delivering the Internet to a range of devices from entry-level smartphones through to consumer and industrial devices.